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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 13172" data-attributes="member: 22">28/Dec/83: DYNASTY: The Wedding v. 29/Dec/83: KNOTS LANDING: Secrets Cry AloudThe climactic scenes of this week's KNOTS and DYNASTY each have the majority of the cast assembling to witness a key event involving two central characters. On DYNASTY, it’s Blake and Krystle’s wedding. On KNOTS, it's a Neighbours for Survival meeting where Karen is due to make a speech introducing Greg as the guest speaker. (Exactly who or what Neighbours for Survival is kept vague, but the name itself chimes with KNOTS' recurring theme of vigilantism.) While the DYNASTY affair goes off without a hitch, the KNOTS event is a disaster.Blake and Krystle’s is first big wedding on DYNASTY since, well, the first big wedding on DYNASTY, which was also Blake and Krystle’s, back in the first episode. And of the six Soap Land marriages we’ve had this season, this is one of only two that hasn’t been a quickie ceremony in front of a Justice of the Peace. Given Soap Land's reputation for opulence and glamour, this is surprising, until one remembers that the entire genre was sparked off by an elopement, Bobby and Pam’s on DALLAS.While DYNASTY’s wedding recalls the lavishness of its pilot episode (while not quite matching it), the Neighbours for Survival meeting, with its folding chairs and homemade banners, is something of a throwback to KNOTS' early days of community events. Back then, Seaview Circle’s representatives at such meetings were solidly conventional suburbanites. Now their number includes a crime commissioner, a best-selling novelist and the head of a news channel.Mack, Val, Ben and the rest of the crowd watch in dismay as Karen falls apart midway through her speech and has to be led from the hall. The only real surprise is that they’re all so surprised. With Karen’s pill problem already such an open secret on the cul-de-sac, it seems a little odd that they would expect her to handle such a big speech in the first place, but I guess denial covers a multitude of sins, including the occasional plot hole. In fact, if I’ve one criticism of this period of KNOTS it’s that Karen’s drug dependency and her role as Mary Frances’s surrogate mother have been jammed together somewhat illogically. But with everything else working so well (this is the ep where Mack publicly announces his intention to expose the Wolfbridge Group and Abby encounters Mark St Clare for the first time), it’s a very minor complaint.Following the example set by Lilimae, who has been openly critical of Val's new love interest throughout this season of KNOTS, Alexis voices her disapproval of Fallon's latest beau in this week’s DYNASTY. Mind you, it’s hard to imagine Lilimae describing Ben as “decadent, burnt out … and evidently not too shabby in bed” the way Alexis does Peter de Vilbis. And anyway, Lilimae makes a concerted effort to bury the hatchet with Ben this week after learning of Val’s pregnancy. “I’m gonna be the best grandma any baby ever had,” she promises her tearfully. Meanwhile, Alexis plays with Fallon’s son in her penthouse, but any direct reference to her being his grandmother is studiously avoided.Both KNOTS LANDING’s Ben and DYNASTY’s Adam make impassioned speeches about the prospect of impending fatherhood this week. Adam, the true father of Kirby’s unborn baby, insists upon his right to be recognised as such. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a father … and I can’t deny our child that chance,” he tells Kirby. Meanwhile Ben, who mistakenly believes himself to be the father of Val’s child, delivers a touching speech in her living room. "I don’t know why I never thought I could be a father,” he says. "I guess I figured I would be no damn good at it. Today, I realised I was wrong. Today, I realised that I’m gonna be the best damn father that ever lived. I mean I already love this baby and it’s not even born yet!” Neither Kirby nor Val wastes any time in disabusing these men of their assumptions. “It isn’t going to happen,” Kirby tells Adam flatly after he insists they get married. “It’s not your child, it’s Gary’s,” Val tells Ben as gently as she can. Ben walks out without saying a word — and with Kirby and Jeff still planning to divorce, it looks as if she and Val are facing similar futures as Soap Land’s first unmarried mothers.With only DYNASTY and KNOTS to focus on this week, an unexpected parallel also emerges between Mark Jennings and Laura Avery. Each works for a powerful woman, whom they openly dislike and whose pomposity they prick whenever the whim takes them. "Sometimes I think you really do believe that bull you toss out,” Mark tells Alexis, after eavesdropping on her conversation with Fallon. “Doesn’t it bother you that all these people are losing their homes?” Laura asks Abby, referring to the Lotus Point residents whom Abby is displacing to further her own interests. Alexis and Abby respond to such insubordination with half-hearted ultimatums. "One way or another you're gonna pack your bags so you decide whether it's one suitcase or everything you own,” Alexis tells Mark when he questions the wisdom of them gatecrashing Blake and Krystle’s honeymoon. “This is the way the game is played. If you don’t have the stomach for it you can always get out,” Abby tells Laura. Both relationships are great fun — each pair bickers like an old married couple reluctantly shackled together — but Mark and Laura’s outspokenness also hint at disasters yet to come. “That enemy list of yours grows longer every day, Alexis,” Mark observes. “If Gary’s off with Cathy I guess he won’t be paying any attention to Lotus Point,” surmises Laura. "I guess that’s how the big kids play, don’t they?”Both Alexis and Dex, and Greg and Abby, indulge in a bout of sofa sex this week — the former in Alexis’s office (how very JR of her), the latter in the penthouse above Abby’s office. While Dex and Alexis’s couch-based copulation is followed by an argument ("I think you still have a thing for Blake Carrington!”), Greg and Abby’s is preceded by one (“You’re an expensive woman, you could be costing me too much”). Thinking Greg is about to dump her, Abby becomes upset. Generally speaking, Abby is surprisingly emotional about her affair with Greg. When he stood her up to be with Mary Frances a couple of episodes ago, for instance, she clearly took it to heart. Of course, how much of Abby’s feelings are about Greg himself and how much about what he get for her is open to debate. Nevertheless, it’s very interesting that Donna Mills should choose to play Abby’s emotions so close to the surface at this point.And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (2) KNOTS LANDING2 (5) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?